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I have no doubt that the little boy had no idea of what would happen. His parents are completely responsible for the homicide and should be sufficiently punished... I just hope that this issue is properly handled with the boy. Can you imagine growing up, knowing you killed your sister? The guilt would eat me alive.

I have no doubt that the little boy had no idea of what would happen. His parents are completely responsible for the homicide and should be sufficiently punished... I just hope that this issue is properly handled with the boy. Can you imagine growing up, knowing you killed your sister? The guilt would eat me alive.

Not only that, but also friends, neighbors, other members of the family, all of them knowing that you killed your little sister. The stress and pressure will be immense for this little guy, and it breaks my heart that he will live the rest of his life this way.

It's always sad to hear about these things happening I agree that a kid that young shouldn't have a gun in the first place. There's just too much room for error. And if parents insist on giving their kid a gun, then they should have the common sense of taking safety precautions such as not leaving guns laying around and not having them loaded. At that age, a kid is not going to know any better, and they're impressionable, and much more liable to do things because they see their parents do something. That does pose a question about the parents though. If they've left their kid's gun laying around loaded, I wouldn't trust this family with guns, period.

Reminds me of a story I read a long time ago. Must have been in 2009, where a father took his kid out to a gun fair and let him shoot what must have been a semi-automatic, and the kid couldn't handle the recoil and wound up shooting himself.

It was a full auto, it was in Mass I believe. The father signed the permission waver and the kid was with a trained instructor at the firing line.

Gary7 wrote:

^ Good points there, J.Allen. Seems like this kid is destined for long term psychiatry.

Or not. Not publicly shaming the kid and treating him like a pariah because of an accident would go a long ways to help.

__________________

What is money? It's little pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other for food.

Reminds me of a story I read a long time ago. Must have been in 2009, where a father took his kid out to a gun fair and let him shoot what must have been a semi-automatic, and the kid couldn't handle the recoil and wound up shooting himself.

It was a full auto, it was in Mass I believe. The father signed the permission waver and the kid was with a trained instructor at the firing line.

You say that as if it clears up the whole issue and like there's nothing bizarre or misguided about a father wanting his young son to fire a fully automatic weapon. You can't even use the excuse of teaching the kid hunting or home defense for that. What purpose does a child, much less an adult who's not in the military or law enforcement, have with a full auto weapon?

Gary7 wrote:

^ Good points there, J.Allen. Seems like this kid is destined for long term psychiatry.

Or not. Not publicly shaming the kid and treating him like a pariah because of an accident would go a long ways to help.

Fortunately, that's an imaginary problem, as the vast majority of people are neither shaming the kid nor treating him like a pariah, because he's, you know, five. The targets of most people's ire in this case have rightly been the negligent parents, the companies that market guns to small children, and the insane gun culture in this country.

Although, there have been a couple of people in TNZ who have never raised children themselves who have been making wild claims about "well-mannered and well-educated children doing what they're told" and never playing around with loaded weapons left out in the open, which does put the onus for the accident on the five-year old child's shoulders rather than the grossly negligent parents. You wouldn't happen to know who one of those people were, would you, Data? But yes, I agree, we shouldn't shame the child by calling him not well-mannered and implying that he's an abnormal five-year-old because he did something he wasn't supposed to do like every child that's ever existed.

__________________'First Contact' is the tale of a man who just wants to cash in on his creation so he can get wasted on an island full of naked women, but his fans keep insisting that he's a saintly visionary who has profoundly altered the world. AKA - 'I Don't Want to be a Statue: The Gene Roddenberry Story.'

Reminds me of a story I read a long time ago. Must have been in 2009, where a father took his kid out to a gun fair and let him shoot what must have been a semi-automatic, and the kid couldn't handle the recoil and wound up shooting himself.

It was a full auto, it was in Mass I believe. The father signed the permission waver and the kid was with a trained instructor at the firing line.

You say that as if it clears up the whole issue and like there's nothing bizarre or misguided about a father wanting his young son to fire a fully automatic weapon. You can't even use the excuse of teaching the kid hunting or home defense for that. What purpose does a child, much less an adult who's not in the military or law enforcement, have with a full auto weapon?

+1 . Fully agree. I didn't want to make any assumptions about it being fully automatic or not since I couldn't remember any details, but knowing that it was indeed a fully automatic weapon makes the situation even worse. There shouldn't be any reason for this kind of thing to happen in the first place. Ever. It's totally irresponsible for the parent to be putting the kid in danger like that, trained instructor or not.

Anyway, back to the original story. I feel for the little guy. He's going to need some counseling when he grows up knowing what's happened. Poor guy.

I'd seen the headlines, but just read the story within the hour. I simply don't understand why people would give a child that young a real rifle instead of an air rifle.

I'm not a parent, but is a 5 year old even capable of comprehending that a gun can kill people? Or of what death is?

There's some sort of irony at work here. In the 50s and 60s, I had cap pistols. Cowboys and Indians were all over TV. There were even some guns that shot plastic "bullets" like the Mattel Fanner 50 revolver. Then after the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, safety groups got involved and such toys were virtually eliminated. So now they give kids barely old enough to wipe their own asses real guns.

How 'bout this for a rule: if you're too young for Space Mountain, you shouldn't shoot a gun, period.

There's no age requirement for Space Mountain, just a height one.

That means dwarves shouldn't get firearms.

Short people got nobody...

__________________
We are quicksilver, a fleeting shadow, a distant sound... our home has no boundaries beyond which we cannot pass. We live in music, in a flash of color... we live on the wind and in the sparkle of a star! Endora, Bewitched

I'd seen the headlines, but just read the story within the hour. I simply don't understand why people would give a child that young a real rifle instead of an air rifle.

I'm not a parent, but is a 5 year old even capable of comprehending that a gun can kill people? Or of what death is?

There's some sort of irony at work here. In the 50s and 60s, I had cap pistols. Cowboys and Indians were all over TV. There were even some guns that shot plastic "bullets" like the Mattel Fanner 50 revolver. Then after the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, safety groups got involved and such toys were virtually eliminated. So now they give kids barely old enough to wipe their own asses real guns.

I grew up playing cowboys and Indians in the 50's. What I remember totally breaking my little heart was never getting one of these.

Full Auto shooting is fun. Wouldn't let a kid do it, and it's a shame that one shot himself trying it. Recreational shooting is a legitimate hobby. That said, I'm gonna track down and bitch-slap these dumbass parents that don't secure a firearm around a child.

__________________
No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks!

I grew up playing cowboys and Indians in the 50's. What I remember totally breaking my little heart was never getting one of these.

Somewhere (but not in my belongings) is a photo of me at 4, with a Davy Crockett pistol, wearing a Davy Crockett shirt, Davy Crockett pants, a Davy Crockett hat, and holding a Davy Crockett balloon. I think they entered it in a contest and won a Davy Crockett book, though I was too young to read, and it was written for high school kids or something. We also had Bill Hayes' 45rpm record, which would be worth real money now.